"Do not expect immediate results and be ready to invest in work. Attention to detail and hard work can really make you stand out from others."
When and why did you start making music? We have both had musical upbringings. I started playing saxophone when I was 10 and Dom played cello from an early age. We have both played drums too and so before we started writing dance music we both had a wealth of musical training. We met on the Tonmeister sound recording course at the University of Surrey and a shared interest in dance music led us to start producing tracks together. At that time breaks was growing fast and there were a lot of great tracks getting released which caught our ears so that is the route we went down. According to you, what are the main qualities to be known? It's hard to answer because it really depends on whether your ultimate goal is to become famous or not. For me, it's not. I think it's very important to have a clear idea of what you want to become in life and to focus on it to succeed. Personally, my goal is to make music. I will be happy as long as I can continue to make and live. My level of notoriety is not one of my priorities. Where do you gather inspiration for creating the music you make? My inspiration for creating music comes through a process of of poking at stuff until I find something I like. I think of the raves I’ve been to in the past; when I have raves coming up like this weekend, for example, I think of what would be really sick to play, whatever I’d enjoy getting down to, so my inspiration is creating something that I’d genuinely enjoy myself. Please guide us through the general process how you make a track? It generally starts with a beat and bassline. Once these are sounding extremely fat we’ll start to play around with lead sounds and other ideas on top. As these develop the tune starts to take a structure and then its a case of working out the different sections of the tune. We try to make our tracks go on a journey so that they hold the listeners interest right the way through. The ideas need to keep coming and developing throughout the track to achieve this. How long have you been producing? I think that it’s been around 11 years. Your brand of electro house is definitely unique and that fits with Never Say Die's business model. Which acts initially got you to say to yourself, "This is something that I really want to do?” I mentioned the breakbeat days above. From around 2005 to 2008 that is the only style I was producing. Miles Dyson was the name that principally got me experimenting with electro house. Wolfgang Gartner a close second. I still love their tracks from that era. Do you prefer to DJ or playing live at the club?I think both have their merits and that it is best to be able to do both. Playing live is rewarding because it is all original material and we can have control over elements of the music that are pre-determined when just DJing tracks. The way tracks blend together is different when playing live. We can play bits of one track over another and really play about with the arrangement. DJing can be just as rewarding when you have spent a load of time finding tracks that really go well together and that you think will take the dancefloor on a journey.